Sandy Dawson, the brother of slain Lindt siege victim Katrina Dawson, has hit out at the two and a half years it has taken police and other agencies to admit mistakes, saying his family and that of fellow victim Tori Johnson had been reduced to "begging for the truth."
Throughout the inquest, the families had had to sit in court every day "waiting for somebody to say 'this went wrong, we could have done this better, we made this mistake and we're sorry.'"
"No one was prepared to do that for the entirety of the inquest and it is demeaning and unfair that families like ours and like the Johnsons are reduced to a clich?? of begging for the truth", Mr Dawson told the ABC's Four Corners program on Monday night.
Ms Dawson's mother Jane said the inquest was "worth it in the sense that the truth came out" but that this had occurred "despite the best efforts of people to conceal it."
Coroner Michael Barnes handed down a 500-page report on the siege last week which confirmed myriad police errors. New police commissioner Mick Fuller's acceptance of many of the findings last Wednesday was the first time any senior officer has publicly acknowledged those mistakes.
Former hostage Louisa Hope told Fairfax Media she and other hostages had been left with an "unexpected, peculiar feeling of almost dead nothingness" after Mr Barnes handed down his report.
"The sense is that it's over, but actually it's not," she said. Both she and her elderly mother, Robin, continue to suffer from not fully-healed shrapnel wounds incurred on the night of the siege.
Neither has yet received compensation for their ordeal. Ms Hope told Fairfax Media she had been sent a form and told if she filled it in, she would be eligible for a maximum $5000, barely enough to cover incidental costs she had incurred as result of her reduced mobility.
Ms Hope praised Mr Fuller for acknowledging errors and said she hoped for a "massive overhaul, and a major clean broom sweeping through police operations, especially with regards to negotiators" who were heavily criticised in Mr Barnes' report.
But she said, "I personally felt that there may have been more room in the inquest report to explore [questions around] the leadership on the night".
Mr Barnes has made no adverse findings against then police chief Andrew Scipione and deputy Cath Burn, however Mr Fuller faced questioning on Monday night about the decision of Mr Scipione and Ms Burn to go home before the siege had come to an end.
"It's clear the community's expectation, if you are the leader, not the commander, if you are the leader, that you are there for the long haul. And I totally accept that," he told Four Corners.
The decision of senior police who commanded the siege to wait for a crisis inside the caf?? before rescuing hostages instead of approving a rescue plan (or Deliberate Action) has again been heavily criticised by a senior UK police expert who reviewed the siege.
The expert, Deputy Chief Constable Simon Chesterman, said the DA had been a "good plan" worked up by professionals which would have given police the best chance to "resolve the siege with minimal damage and injury".
Instead senior commanders repeatedly knocked back requests from their tactical commanders to approve it.
Mr Chesterman told Four Corners: "Can you imagine being in a situation where you're responsible for those people's lives and you haven't got the best possible plan in place? I would have been screaming out for it."
Mr Fuller said he accepted that "clearly a Deliberate Action is a much more professional action."
"I think the family members should feel disappointed, they should feel let down" he added.
Instead of a DA, police were forced to launch an emergency response when Tori Johnson was shot at close range by gunman Man Haron Monis.
Robin Hope told Four Corners Mr Johnson had bravely opted to remain with her instead of escaping when he had the chance at 2.03 am on the night of the siege.
"I said to Tori, 'you go' and he said 'no I'll stop here with you'."
Former hostage Jarrod Morton-Hoffman has spoken further about the despair the hostages felt as police failed to change their wait-and-see tactics through the long 17 hours of the December 2014 siege.
"It's your life at stake, not theirs, but they're not changing the way that they're approaching the situation when it's clearly not working," he said.
Louisa Hope told Fairfax Media that in the wake of the siege, she wished to see that "we as a community are brought together, instead of pulled apart."
